Please HELP! Is my 7900GT broken?

[Brounstoun]

I just got an Opteron 165 and a 7900GT, and Im having trouble turning it on with the 7900GT's dedicated power cable plugged in. Boots up fine w/o graphics card plugged in, but gives a message stating graphics card is underpowered, could cause damage.

My PSU is a Antec Smartpower 2.0 500W. I thought this would be plenty of power. Anyone know what my problem could be?

 

[imported_Imp]

May just be the 12 volt rail on the PSU. The Smartpower line has a "weaker", lower amp 12v rail than Truepower and such. Not sure what an Opteron 165 is (dual core?), but this definately sounds like a power issue. What else do you have plugged in, number od drives? Check out the SM specs at Antec.

Should also add, most stuff (big stuff) runs off 12v rail(s)m why it's amp rating is so important.

 

[Howard]

Do you have a 4-pin Molex-to-PCI-E adapter handy?

 

[Operandi]

The 7900GT is a fairly low power part, from a current draw point of view. If the PSU really is the source of the problem which it sounds like it is then it's due to a problem with the PSU, not the fact that it's not powerful enough.